THE PAIN BETWEEN CAGE’S TEMPLES flared, and he shut his eyes against it. When he opened them, his vision was blurry. After a moment it slowly sharpened, so that the house he was facing seemed to rise out of the trees themselves. Its high mansard roof slanted among the leaves, and its painted brick that looked more bluish than white spilled into the woods.
He faltered, his boots heavy on the gravel all of a sudden. He stared up at Blue Gate, trying to see into her bedroom, and then glimpsed someone at one of the upper windows. It was a huge house, the kind that couldn’t be taken in with just one glance. If a house could be lanky, this one was. On the outside, it was too tall, had too many pillars on the wraparound porch, and its spire was crooked. Inside, the rooms were strangely shaped, full of unexpected corners from the attic to the basement. Ro loved it, but to him Blue Gate had always felt…off. His mother would say he was being superstitious like his dad, but he couldn’t help how he felt. Something was wrong with the place, even if he couldn’t say what it was.
Cage had been around tales of such things from his summer job at the wharf. Nautical stars and fleurs-de-lis carved into masts for luck, and ships that were said to be haunted. Thing was, people secretly believed in the stories they whispered, even if they sounded ridiculous in daylight. Ro was a believer, but in a playful way, like she was holding back a wink. There was nothing to like about her house or the book she’d inherited—coincidences that struck too close for comfort—but she’d promised to overlook his past, which was more than he ever expected. So he ignored her book, didn’t tell her not to play around with it, that in parts of New Orleans they took that sort of thing seriously. He said not one word, and in truth it reminded him of his mother, so he was happy not to bring it up. Ro’s grandfather wanted it kept a secret anyway; she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about it, not even her sisters.
But he and Ro told each other everything—that was the other promise. He’d have to own up to his motorcycle accident, even though he’d bragged about being good with a bike.
The shadow at the window was gone now, and he started forward again. It wasn’t dusk yet, but the porch light was on, and that burning bulb seemed like a beacon. A lighthouse in the woods.
Cage strode down the gravel drive. The rain had stopped, but his stolen clothes were still wet and his skull was throbbing. If he’d been in the hospital overnight, Ro might be worried. They’d been fighting before he’d rode off, that much he knew, but she still would have expected him to call. His mother never gave much good advice, but she said to always apologize to a girl if she was angry. Even if you weren’t sure why. So he’d apologize. He’d knock on the door and Ro would answer. He’d say he was sorry, and she’d make things okay—she always did; that was part of her magic. She’d help him find his bike, or what was left of it, and then he’d drive to the docks in Gulf Shores for work. Simple.
He walked past a pair of beech trees in the yard and the crumbling fountain and then took the porch steps two at a time. The rocking chairs were empty and so was the porch swing—its chain was broken and it hung crooked. The red paint on the door was fading, peeling away. Could take a brush to it if Sonny would let him.
He knocked once and then waited. No answer, so he rapped the iron knocker and then felt something soft weave around his ankles. A small black cat, one of the strays Ro looked after. He leaned down and put his hand next to it, let it nuzzle against him.
Footsteps came from inside the house, and the cat darted into the bushes. Cage straightened, but no one opened the door. He knocked again, louder this time, and then waited what seemed like forever. The door opened just a crack, the metal chain still latched.
Ro’s younger sister stared at him, her brown eyes wide, that half-curly hair of hers long and loose and no makeup on. She was the kind of girl who didn’t know she was pretty and didn’t care either. Not like Ro, who knew but didn’t hold it against you.
“Hey, can you get Ro for me?”
Without saying a word, Mae slammed the door in his face.
His head was starting to throb again, and this wasn’t helping. He wanted a hot shower, some food, and a gallon of water—his thirst was sucking his very soul dry—but mostly he just wanted Ro. And now he was stuck out here with the door locked. Ro must be angry with him for sure, had even told her sister about their fight.
He knocked again. Come on, Mae. He swore he heard breathing on the other side. Mae had always been a bit off the beaten path. Wild-animal shy and nothing like Ro.
“You still there?” he said. “Mind letting me in?”
When he was about to turn away, maybe throw a pebble at Ro’s window the old-fashioned way, the door opened again. Her sister was staring at him, the chain still latched.
“You know why I’m here,” Cage said.
Her lips parted, but she didn’t speak. She looked confused, almost stunned. The look of someone who’d taken an elbow to the head. That dazed stare, then the rapid blinking, like she was surprised to find herself standing in front of him.
She started to say something and then stopped. Mae was only a couple of years younger, but Ro was the one who ran the house and always had. Maybe their fight had been worse than he realized. Could be she didn’t want to see him or had finally dropped him for Lance.
“Where…where have you been?” Mae asked.
Good, at least she was speaking to him now. Another bolt of pain shot through his skull, and he breathed out hard and ran his hand over his hair. His scalp felt tender—maybe he was bleeding.
“Look,” Cage said. “I crashed my motorcycle. Can you please get Ro?”
“You want Ro?” Mae’s voice was barely a whisper. She looked confused. “But…”
He waited, trying his best to let her finish. Mae had trailed off, and now she was tilting her head to the side as if she couldn’t quite remember who he was.
“But…you can’t,” she said.
Her sidestepping was frustrating the hell out of him. “She might’ve told you I can’t,” he said, trying to keep the bite from his voice, “but I need to talk to her.”
“I don’t understand.” Mae’s chest rose and fell under her thin sweatshirt. Her breath was jagged, like she might hyperventilate. It reminded him of his mother, after the smoking got to her lungs.
“Let me in for a second.” His hand went to his head again—he needed to remember, explain himself. “Please, Mae.” He tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry.
After a long moment Mae slid the latch, and the door swung open a bit more. She stood there, blocking the entrance, even though there was nothing to her—she was all sinew, and timid as anything. He thought about pushing her aside and hollering for Ro, but instead he let out a breath, wiped his boots on the mat.
“I’m trying here, real hard,” he said. Mae was still gaping at him. He glanced over her shoulder and caught a face in the shadows. But no, it was just all those portraits on the walls. “I know she’s home,” he told her. “I saw her at the window.”
She put her hands up to her mouth and blinked like she was holding in tears.
“Look,” he said. “Look, don’t worry. I’m not mad.” She took a step back, and he saw his entrance and went for it, lunging through the doorway. The foyer reeked, it needed air. “She upstairs?”
Mae’s hands fell away from her face, and she was doing that weird breathing again.
“Talk to me.”
“I— She—”
A banging noise behind them. Cage turned to see the other sister barging into the foyer. Elle was taller than Mae and looked a little like Ro, if you took Ro’s face and stretched it out.
“Listen—” he started.
“Get away from her,” Elle snarled. She lifted something, and his chest knew what it was before his eyes did.
She was holding a rifle. His heart was going thud thud thud thud and he was vaguely aware of Mae beside him. “Call the cops, Mae,” Elle said.
Why the cops? “Hey, I know your sister and me got in a fight, but—”
“Stop.” Elle cut him off. “Keep your hands up and shut your mouth.”
“Elle!” Mae snapped out of whatever daze she’d been in and finally moved. “Put it down!”
If Elle hadn’t had the gun, Cage might have laughed, but she was serious, her face tense with anger. “Turn around,” she said, the rifle aimed at his chest. “Slowly.”
He didn’t want to turn around. Elle wasn’t going to shoot, but the thought of putting his back to the barrel made him feel sick. He stayed facing her, his muscles frozen up. It was hard to think with a gun pointed at him. As many fights as he’d been in, he’d only ever had one aimed at him once, and that had been at his mother’s place. “This is a misunderstanding.”
“Shut up,” Elle said, and then came the unmistakable click. She’d cocked the gun.
“He doesn’t know—” Mae started, but her sister let out a sharp laugh, the rifle still on him.
“Is this supposed to be some sort of joke?” Elle’s voice had risen a notch. “Do you think this is funny?” Her bangs were matted with sweat.
“I’m not laughing,” Cage said. It was all happening too fast, and he wasn’t sure what to do. Run? Yell for Ro? He stood in place, every muscle in his body taut.
“Elle, he doesn’t know,” Mae repeated, louder this time.
He glanced at her and then back at the gun. “Know what?”
Elle kept the barrel aimed. “Mae, pick up the phone and call the cops like I told you.”
For shit’s sake. Only in Alabama. Only in Alabama would a sixteen-year-old girl be shoving a rifle in his face. The floor seemed to tilt and he was sweating and he felt his control slipping away. Stay calm, stay calm. But something didn’t make sense, and doubt had begun to crawl into his stomach. A little snake of doubt, and it was twisting and turning in his gut.
“Ro is—”
“Mae, don’t talk to him.” Elle cut her off. “And you keep your hands up.”
The snake in Cage’s stomach sank fangs. He was scared now, and the gun wasn’t half of it. “Where is she?”
“You know where she is!” Elle yelled, stepping toward him. “You did it, and then you took off and hid.” The rifle bobbed up at his face. “You think you can just come back here after all this time? Act like it never happened?”
The floor tilted again, fast, and he felt he might lose it completely. “What? What are you…?” He was trying to form words but his head was pounding. “Did what?”
“You coward. Own up to it.”
“I’m not,” he said, even though all he wanted to do was get out of this stinking house. “Mae, what’s she talking about?”
“Ro’s gone,” Mae told him. “You ran, so we thought—”
“What do you mean, gone?” His chest heaved when he said it.
“Ro’s dead.” Mae was still talking, but he couldn’t hear anything more, because he was stuck on dead. Kept hearing it over and over. Dead. Dead. Dead. But she couldn’t be. No, not Ro. Not her. He was desperate now; he felt like he was in a dream, a nightmare.
“We know it was you,” Elle said.
The rifle was shaking. Her look said she hated him, and his head was a drum and his heartbeat was in his ears and everything around him was fading, going gray. Dead dead dead dead.
His vision blurred—the barrel was closer now. Elle’s voice in his ear: “You’ll regret coming back.”
Something was wrong. It was a trick, it wasn’t real. He thought of that thing of hers, that thing that shouldn’t exist, that shouldn’t be possible. “Is this about the book?” He tripped on the words, tried to think straight, to breathe. “Has she—”
“Just stop talking!”
His eyes were on the stairs now. He’d call Elle’s bluff and run up to Ro’s room. She was in her room and everything was all right and the girl he loved was alive.
“Please put it down,” Mae begged her sister. “Please. We need to talk to him.”
“No,” Elle said, and she was crying now. “He did it, I know he did.”
And then everything happened fast—Mae was shouting for him to leave and stepping toward her sister and he was turning away from them and that horrible echo, dead dead dead dead, and the next thing he heard was the roar of the gun and his heart stopped in his chest.